Teapot Dome

Teapot Dome is the site of a Wyoming oil field, and the name of one of the largest American scandals before Watergate. President Warren G. Harding appointed his friend Albert Fall as Secretary of the Interior, and Fall persuaded the President to transfer naval oil reserves to his purview. He then secretly leased the exclusive rights to Teapot Dome to a friend's private oil company, without any bidding or competition. When the news broke in April 1922, the Senate began an investigation into Fall's actions. Fall ended up as the first former cabinet officer to go to prison. [More]